21 comments:

I'm considering watermarking just to give my pictures/blog a more professional, legitimate feel. I'm trying to break into the photography field in a saturated market so anything I can do to up my credibility is good in my book.

i don't watermark. i don't know how. however, i think some watermarks make photos look more professional (such as the ones you used as examples in your last post). i don't like watermarks on the photos themselves. if i did watermark, i'd probably do it just to advertise, not because i was worried about someone stealing my photos.

Is having the name on the border of the image consider Watermarking? I only watermark images on my blog. I am building my gallery for my web page and I did not want anything to take away from the image. But on my blog, I wanted it for advertising, a more business look, and isn't everyone doing it? :). Though, I would certainly like someone to ask if they could use an image, if that doesn't happen, I can partially believe that the watermark is going with the image. I say partially since it is on the border.

I like the coffee ice cream with chocolate chunks from Cold Stone Creamery. Hmmm Hmmmm....Yummy.

Hi! I am not a professional photographer, but I have had a few people recommend that I do watermark. I am not sure how I feel about it. I seriously am not worried about someone stealing it. There are millions of incredible photos out there now, what are the chances someone is going to find mine, think it is THAT incredible (insert sarcasm) and steal it. I am guessing slim to none.

My question is, what are they going to steal them for? Any legitimate commercial user wouldn't steal it, they would contact you and request permission. So, anyone that would actually find and want you particular shots, would most likely be some no-name user that no one cares about anyway. Right?

Post without a picture=not as cool as a post with a picture. Watermarks: I've never watermarked, but I'm not against it. Watermarks are cool if placed properly. I like it when people watermark in nicely placed spots on the photo...although I understand why people watermark across faces, but it drives me nuts! Also, I personally think that they're cool the advertise for yourself...and for blogs, the file's too small to print anyway, so protecting them isn't really needed..just an opinion!

I watermark because I know people will take it and will use it without asking me. I shoot for a newspaper and the topics are people who have been interviewed or have made homemade stuff. When they ask for the pic, I give them, but only watermarked, clearly over the picture. If a magazine asks them for a pic, they will otherwise give it without crediting (and thus not paying) me. Now I force them to contact me. I know it happens, because some of these people didn't want new pictures to be taken and have offered me pics from another photographer without asking them. I politely declined....

I watermark to protect my images. A friend of mine had a picture stolen off of her blog, and it scared me a little so I started watermarking. Although, I'm not really sure someone would actually steel one of my photos, and it would probably be easy to erase my watermark, but I do it anyways.

I watermark my images for information/advertisement and I "stole" the idea from a friend and it's just a small black line on the bottom of the photo which contains my name, the year it was taken and my site address...oh yeah, I threw in there the All rights reserved part... :)Also it's easier for me to put it in batches with a script in bash ^_^ which makes it very very easy for me.A friend once asked me to take photos of his car, they can be seen on flickr, and I gave him the ones with the watermark...he removed the line in Paint...well that's easy...made me laugh :)

For me, I watermark because it simply looks better, that is if it's done well. I've seen some horrid ones, but that's just my opinion. IMO, I think it works very well for blogsites, especially when it's not a flash site so anyone can right-click and save my images onto their site. I see my photos on my clients' MySpace/FaceBook pages and I prefer that it has my watermark on them; yes, for advertisement, but also it looks more professional rather without a watermark. Photos without a watermark can look more like a "snapshot" belonging to the MySpace-head … so, who gets the credit if there is no watermark on an awesome photo? If it doesn’t have your name on it then it’s up for grabs! All my work and someone else rip it from underneath me? Not cool. Of course, nothing is safe on the internet.

Hi Nat....I put my website on the image simply because I know the picture is going to get pulled of the blog and put on people's myspace/facebook/emailed to friends and family. I actually want them to. I brings so much traffic back to the blog. Free marketing. I love to see my stuff on other websites, and more times than not I do get photo credit in one way or another. We do risk a chance that someone will take the blog/name/website watermark off, but I believe people most people are well intentioned. LOVE YOU!

You are hilarious!!! I can't stop laughing...what a random post, and yet so NOT random. I can tell that you sincerely want to know....I'm just take & post pics on my Blog for fun so I don't watermark them...mainly cause I don't know how...and maybe 'cause I could care less....hmmmm, maybe I better start asking myself those questions!

I watermark my pictures for advertising purposes and my pictures aren't amazing or anything, but someone did steal a picture of an African orphan once and use it for a website I didn't want to endorse (before I watermarked). Also, I know Ritz Camera stole a picture of Nate Kaiser's daughter this year (the image is found, he told me about it once) and used it for advertising purposes. So I think it's a good idea all around.

One of my first clients took the images from the 'flash' (didn't realize you could right click and get the actual image) slideshow and put them on her myspace and claimed a relative took them. Seeing as they were the edited images, I was a tad upset that she blantantly lied about who took them. Thankfully they were only 288x432, so prints couldn't be made of them.

Also, after reading about Robyn at Buttons and Bows Photography's continuous headache with sites and businesses stealing her images, I wanted to not only protect my business image in my client's eyes but the clients themselves as well. I don't want a client thinking I sold an image of them for commercial purposes without at least notifying them, epecially if it is of a minor (even if I have model releases).

I watermark because a photographer friend of mine had one of her images stolen and used as a cover of an adult movie. What made it worse was it was one of her self portraitures from when she was a minor. Now granted that image had a watermark which they took out before using it after they stole it.

But I feel having the watermark at least will distract most from fringing on copyright issues, looks professional if done right, and helps get your name out there if someone stumbles on your image online.

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